


It's not vanity if you're the one looking

by orphan_account



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Pillow Fucking, potentially anchronistic use of myspace but who's counting?, puns i am frankly ashamed of im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21852952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Picking out paint colors together already? How sweet, no wonder you are smiling,” Carlos says. “Although, much like your choice of food, is very bland. I have a stylist I can recommend if you want.”And he’s being sort of earnest, which shouldn’t be awful but it’s also hideously embarrassing for Lando because it’s also the tail end of a pun about nudes. Lando doesn’t mean for this single instance of interaction to really succinctly summarize his entire relationship with Dan, which is to say everything is a joke -- at least Lando’s terrified that it probably is so therefore it *must* be -- Lando’s own stake in things be damned. But, yes, OK, Lando knows how he gets a bit extra flaily or whatever when Dan’s involved so it would not shock him in the slightest if Carlos had somehow sussed out what’s going on, at least on Lando’s end of things.--Carlos joking about Myspace was a mistake -- one Lando intends to not let his teammate live down.
Relationships: Lando Norris/Carlos Sainz Jr, Lando Norris/Daniel Ricciardo
Comments: 11
Kudos: 65
Collections: Motorsport Secret Santa 2019





	It's not vanity if you're the one looking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).

> oh my god, I legit have no idea what I'm doing with these two I'm sorry; I was supposed to be writing you some nice jev and sam, but I know what a kick you've been on wrt these two idiots as of late, so I hope this brings you some kind of joy this holiday season. This is riddled with some copy edit fuck-ups I'm sorry, I'm getting through trying to edit as fast as I can.
> 
> CW at the end, although there's not much.

The thing about Carlos is he's just as good at playing clueless as he is at being so fucking unbothered by something he honestly doesn't know what's going on, and it's a pattern of behavior Lando's convinced is responsible for his fraying nerves. Which is fine, really, lots of them to spare and he's already a shitshow when it comes to appropriately modulating his responses, nobody even looks at him twice anymore when he's reduced to a fit of giggles over casual absurdities like the time someone left a Kraft Singles slice on his pillow in the motorhome like a hotel chocolate.

Speaking of hotel chocolates _ ,  _ Lando types out  _ u wanna see my nudes  _ plus an eyes emoji and fires that off to Dan on WhatsApp before he can think the better of it, trying to muffle the cresting snickering laugh trying to wiggle its way out of his mouth. God, they're supposed to be doing one of those Versus bits, and he honestly can't even remember what game they're playing. He doesn't think Carlos is even here yet, another point for unbothered --

"Lando, are you prepared to die?" Nevermind then, Carlos is here and has just been being sneaky. The challenge is delivered with a solid backblow that would've been disastrous if he hadn't been finishing his gourmet procured Yoohoo from his drinks bottle and sippy straw. As it is, Lando just vaguely chokes to death on chocolate milk wondering if Carlos' greeting was a genuine threat. "I hope we have no more of -- how you say, the blocky thing?"

"Jenga," Lando wheezes, coughing voraciously.

"Jenga?" And the fact that Carlos pronounces it "henga" also means he knows how it's spelled and today is apparently a day for Sneaky Carlos all around.

" _ Jen _ ga," Lando repeats, highlighting the hard  _ djuh _ , and Carlos just gives him Confused Sideye Number Three in response.

"Yes, Jenga, is what I said," Carlos jostles Lando's shoulders with mild concern. "Are you ok? You're not actually dying already?"

Lando’s phone vibrates on the table, and he opts to look down at it in an easy conversational out. It’s Dan, who’s texted back  _ do I ever  _ ; Lando scrolls through his downloads folder to find a few of his favorites while one of the video team comes over and pokes him till he lifts his chin, and starts dusting his face with a bit of concealer. Do they even bother with Carlos? Lando doubts it, his teammate too suave, unteenagery, and well. Hot, honestly, there’s no real way of getting around that one, what with the hair and the lips and everything. He sends Dan three images of paint swatches, and then follows it up with a quick  _ the nonchalant white brings out my eyes more but I’m a big fan of the steamed milk  _ .

He sets his phone down and -- he thinks her name is Serena, the make-up artist -- immediately has the rash of pimples that have popped up where his helmet pad rests on his crown attacked by an oval sponge brush. His eyes find Carlos’ face on autopilot and Lando finds him meeting his gaze easily while his own face is being attacked by Serena’s skinny pink-haired boy minion. Carlos is smiling in a way that makes Lando a bit nervous.

“What?” Lando asks, grinning half in self-defense, and Carlos leans over until he’s held in place by minion’s fingers.

“Picking out paint colors together already? How sweet, no wonder you are smiling,” Carlos says. “Although, much like your choice of food, is very bland. I have a stylist I can recommend if you want.”

And he’s being sort of earnest, which shouldn’t be awful but it’s also hideously embarrassing for Lando because it’s also the tail end of a pun about nudes. Lando doesn’t mean for this single instance of interaction to really succinctly summarize his entire relationship with Dan, which is to say everything is a joke -- at least Lando’s terrified that it probably is so therefore it *must* be -- Lando’s own stake in things be damned. But, yes, OK, Lando knows how he gets a bit extra flaily or whatever when Dan’s involved so it would not shock him in the slightest if Carlos had somehow sussed out what’s going on, at least on Lando’s end of things.

“There’s nothing wrong with a cheese and chutney sandwich, man,” Lando says, most of the indignation in his voice hammy and for show but also, there really isn’t anything wrong with a cheese and chutney sandwich, man.

“A bit generous of you to choose one of your spicier food options in your defense, but I will let this rest for now,” Carlos says magnanimously while leaning back to accept the eraser board being handed him by yet another McLaren PR.

One’s also being handed to Lando, and they’re fiddling with the lighting in the motorhome now instead of their make-up, which Lando figures to mean they are Close To Starting now, and looks down at his prop, it’s unblemished white surface offering no clues professionally or personally. “What are we even playing today?”

“How Well Do You Know Your Teammate!” calls Abby from a corner where she’s talking in her quietly over-intense way to the local production team.

Lando is always impressed by the fact that these bits have a whole team dedicated towards them, it takes maybe three people to put together his vlogs -- three times as many bodies work on the McLaren videos which should make the end product pretty intolerable based on common wisdom, and yet -- they’re usually weirdly charming, if the comments are anything to go by. It’s a paradox.

“Thanks Abby!” Lando says by rote, but smiles genuinely when she pauses for long enough to raise an eyebrow at him and Carlos both.

“We’re doing the usual warm-up questions for sound-check,” she says in a minute or so when she walks over. “So you know, rolling but not final product -- but no guarantees about the Christmas reel. Suggestions?”

“Do my socks match my boxers?” Lando says unthinkingly, disliking the improvisational nature this has just taken and immediately wants to take the words and shove them back into his mouth.

“Mate, your left foot probably no match your right,” Carlos says with a sort of fond disdain.

“Lando?” Asks Abby, brokering this idiocy and fuck Carlos honestly.

“I mean, they’re both the Underarmour ones, and look --” Lando can feel his face heat a little bit and Abby’s slightly mournful  _ oh my God  _ and Carlos’ bad attempt not to be suddenly overly smug he’s sort of right about the state of Lando’s footwear. “The left sock is on the left foot, and a right sock is on my right.”

“The one of the left is all back, yellow logo, your right is bright blue my friend,” Carlos states, which is annoying because it’s a statement of obvious fact not any kind of opinion which makes it harder to refute. “I win one point.”

“Fine,” Lando says, moving this along breezily. “I bet I know who you have your longest Snap streak with.”

“That’s not even hard --” Carlos states.

“And that’ll be your Dad.”

Carlos pauses, and narrows his eyes and Lando and Lando smiles. “Why did you not guess yourself?”

“Because,” Lando says, leaning over and clapping his free hand on Carlos’ shoulder. “I know you better than that. And besides, he sends me stuff daily which is a little odd to be honest but whatever -- they’re mostly videos of your dog.”

“Mostly?” Carlos mutters, slightly concerned.

“Anyway, gotcha, now it’s one-one,” Lando says not bothering to explain himself.

“Snap streak is pretty simple though, imagine if you had to pick my Top 8,” Carlos starts laughing and leans in towards someone Lando guesses is meant to be closer to his age group as if being over twenty-five is a sure-fire way to ensure someone’s actually heard of MySpace, and  _ what  _ ?

“You had a MySpace?” And Carlos looks at Lando in a way that Lando immediately realizes means he absolutely  _ did  _ have a MySpace and it’s probably an absolute disaster if it’s still around for Lando to find and get his hands on.

“I bet I know the last thing you ate,” Carlos offers, and it’s not even a good question -- Lando is about to instead press on about Carlos’ antiquated social media shenanigans except Abby interrupts because the food question is sponsor-inoffensive enough to actually keep for the published bit, so now they’re off to doing this properly.

Lando promises himself he’s not going to let this discovery about Carlos go, though. MySpace. He wonders if Carlos was friends with Tom, and almost pisses himself. His phone vibrates and he can see that it’s a reply from Dan, but he swipes away the notification without looking at it because he’s being paid to pay attention now and can’t be bothered to get in trouble this early in the day.

Lando doesn't get any time to himself until after FP3 which is annoying but somewhat expected. It's frustrating because total downtime is something like barely more than eight hours between his call time for quali and sleep -- he should be standing under the spray of the luxury shower, should be running through the stupid visualization exercise his trainer has him doing, should be sleeping. He's not, obviously; he's instead sitting at the en suite desk and looking through the Wayback Machine on his phone -- his personal one, not the one McLaren have given him.

It could just be he has no concept of what Carlos would even name his profile, but no; Lando is almost entirely positive his teammate's PR team did a hurried scrub of any evidence he was once a kid who made horny and bad decisions just as they're supposed to when you have multi-million dollar sponsors. It's been forty five minutes now, and Lando's found absolutely shit all which is intriguing more than it's infuriating but also -- he's going to have to sleep soon.

He opens up his WhatsApp and scrolls past the technically "unread" response Dan had sent him to his message this morning which is nothing but Ken Jeong yelling "gay" inside of a classroom while wearing a pink shirt and scoots down to Ash's name and shoots him a quick message  _ yeh so whats ur go 2 when wayback isnt producing  _ and talks himself out of banging his head on the expensive glass work surface framed by exotic purpleheart accents because while cathartic, surely, the mild self-harm will not actually get him to bed any faster. Raiding the minbar is out, so he resorts to trawling flash animation message boards and finds himself rewatching stuff he knows he's seen before but can't actually remember.

"Juan is going down to the store he is outside of -- he is inside of the store now," Lando can almost feel his face melting, what's now the fourth rewatch of the same video, which is exactly what he was gunning for before the WhatsApp dropdown notification interrupts the flow of his media consumption.

_ Give archive (dot) is a go _ plus a thumbs-up is what Ash responds with, and so Lando closes out of his looped video-projected insanity and nerves with something akin to relief and types in the suggestion as quickly as he can. It's two in the morning before he manages it, but holy shit Lando finds Carlos' Myspace profile and it is worth every single second of lost sleep before the Hungarian GP.

Lando doesn't actually see Carlos much face-to-face; there's the notion that he's there, just across the garage, the majority of the Saturday and it's more distracting than comforting, especially with his teammate's banished hook-up profile bookmarked to his browser on a device that's sitting pressed against Lando's outer thigh for most of the day. It doesn't exactly distract him from driving, but that's as it should be -- Lando recognizes his thought process can be a bit all over the place, but he's good enough, focused enough to deserve his arse sat in this single-seater and his hands on this steering wheel and besides all that, Lando can multitask.

_ Ugh q3 you should come to mine and cradle me gently in consolation after press pen, you fast driver you _ is the message Lanando's greeted with when he's finally out of the car and being stripped and herded in for the press box. It's from Dan, obviously, and jarring in the sense that Lando doesn't  _ trust _ it to mean nothing and he doesn't trust it to mean anything. When did Dan become complicated? Lando scrubs a hand over his face, and the first interviewer -- Alissandra from Autosport, an intern he thinks not because she's young but because he hasn't seen her before, asks him if he's alright.

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Lando gets out with a sort of goofy grimace he knows most people think is a smile. "Wound up ahead of Carlos which is a bit of a surprise, but that'll probably get itself sorted out tomorrow morning."

"Maybe you'll beat him tomorrow," the young woman offers. Lando notices she's wearing gold earings, thick but tapered things that are asymmetrical and fluid -- he notices them because wildly they remind him of the body paint Carlos has on in one of his Myspace profile pictures he's resolutely decided not to obsess over and it's sudden intrusiveness causes Lando to blink at the ladyjourno rapidly, in a fashion Lando imagines must seem startled if not confused.

"Ah maybe, sure, weirder stuff has happened," Lando laughs. "Certainly plan to give him a hard time getting by. But not, like, Charles-Seb hard."

Lando stops himself short but not quickly enough, biting into his tongue. Alissandra smiles at him kindly and the comment doesn't wind up in publication which is a minor miracle, but mostly as consequence, Lando thinks once he actually has a moment to consider, of the fact that she was new.

Anyway, he's at the track buffet ahead of everyone except the stewards and Lando is excited because this means he'll probably get decent pudding and also that it means he can hoard an entire table to himself without seeming like some kind of unsociable freak of nature. He sets up by the far wall of the tent near one of the patio heaters and fishes out his phone once he's able to get most of the chicken breast on his plate into his mouth and opens up the goldmine the internet has provided him. Carlos' username choice is still something of a work of art in Lando's opinion,  _ Hhottchili  _ both better and worse for it's lack of numerals Lando supposes. There's no functioning website really, but that's not how these things work -- they provide snapshots into what once was. The true treasure is that this apparently also includes Carlos' photo page which is extremely well-endowed with some of the most thirsty, camp, and frankly erotic slices of Carlos' life Lando would never have otherwise attributed to the suave, put-together partner he has now. Although why not? Lando thinks after a few minutes of trying to zoom in on what are forever doomed to be grainy replicas of party-twink Carlos. No one is untouchable,, and most everyone really does want to get fucked if it's on the table in a fashion they're willing to put up with. It's just  _ weird _ to see such a blatant display of it from someone who's otherwise been anything other than desperate. It's throwing Lando for a loop.

It's also, uh, doing other things. Lando swallows his water a bit too quickly when he scrolls over a selfie Carlos took with an almost aggressive pout, the thumb of his right hand hooked into the waistband of what appear to be lime green swim shorts. The whole thing is slightly fried anyway, like some kind of filter was applied to it before filters were really more of a strictly cosmetic thing, but again -- he's trying to zoom in on a screen shot, it's not fucking working.

"Lando!" comes Carlos' voice floating towards him and Lando drops his phone into the mashed potatoes he's not meant to be having anyway.

"Lando why are you hiding? You did well!" Carlos either brought extra napkins because he likes to be prepared or has subconsciously picked-up on the fact that Lando tends to be more generally useless around him and decided more napkins were as safe bet -- but either way, concern radiates off Carlos as he hands them over to Lando who is trying to scoop both his phone and his remaining dignity back out of his dinner.

"I'm not hiding," Lando insists, because well he  _ is _ but he isn't, not in the way Carlos means anyway. "I was just hungry."

"Did you see the sausages? The meat looks so juicy, I want to put all of it in my mouth," Carlos says enthusiastically. "Sadly, only room for three on my plate."

Lando stops his phone rescue operation and just -- looks. At Carlos. Carlos is smiling slightly, but in no way shape or form seems to be aware that he's being sleazy. Lando doesn't entirely trust it though. Carlos looks down at his -- Lando hates himself -- meat, and then looks back up at Lando.

"You want some of my meat? I know you are not one for adventurous food, but the merguez is really something special," Carlos continues and then deposits half a sausage onto Lando's plate.

"I don't want your --" Lando stops himself, bites his lip, and aggressively pats off the rest of the mash residue from his phone before placing it back out of the danger zone. "What's in it anyway?"

"Harissa, mint, garlic, no fish I promise," Carlos says calmly, while Lando studies and lightly pokes the still steaming meat.

It smells alright, but lots of things smell alright and don't taste similarly. "Although if you were in the mood for _hot_ _chilis_ my friend, you could've said -- they have Mexican-style chorizo as well." _Fuck, _Lando thinks, and looks up to see Carlos staring at his phone screen, his only modification to have turned it around to face him.

"That's a bit rude, don't you think?" is all Lando can think to say, which as he doesn't even have half a leg to stand on if he's being honest was maybe not the best line of argument he could've wandered down.

"You mean the color of my jockstrap or the overall effect of the photograph?" Carlos responds conversationally, squinting at the screen slightly. "I think I actually used lipgloss for this one, it was a phase." 

Lando blushes and hates himself, slightly. "I meant you looking at my phone, actually."

"I wouldn't normally, this you know," Carlos says, looking up now and meeting Lando's extremely bothered existence with an aggressively neutral set of body-language. "But I recognized the header and the screen was still on. You have been strange since yesterday, and I was curious. I honestly thought the profile you found was completely gone."

"Nothing's ever completely gone," Lando says, kind of weakly, but internally starts grabbing around the garbage bin of his brain for some sort of quip or stupidity that'll drag this all back into the just-jokes territory it should probably belong in instead of weird thoughts about how fucking pretty Carlos' lips are, and how, objectively speaking, strong his forearms look, how nice his hands might look wrapped around something other than his camera or that jock-strap's cup. Shit, Lando really needs to get his general state of horniness sorted out. He's one lingering look away from jerking off to nine year old photos of his teammate. It's interesting, though, because the Carlos of the photos still seems like an entirely different existence than his real-life partner Carlos, the flesh and blood human sitting across from him slightly disapproving and trying to feed him weird exotically-named cured meats. It's not unlike the thoughts the half-flirting thing with Dan brings up -- all abstract, mostly, just sudden jarring jolts of movement, or the certain slant of light on the man's neck, the way he holds a can of Red Bull. Lando would firmly say he doesn't really have a concrete desire to be in a relationship with either man, he just kind of needs to jerk-off about twice a day and his brain is an easy target for flimsily suggestive material.

"Eat my sausage," Carlos commands. "I will think of a way to forgive you for this while also watching you delete these pictures from your phone."

Lando almost flails, he feels so awkward about this but wouldn't anyone have taken the bait? He was expecting something silly, not memes maybe -- or whatever crazy kids had back in 2010, but crappy poetry or awful music, large sparkling motivational quotes or something. He wasn't expecting a profile clearly used to pick-up. Christ even the bio was salacious. He puts -- he's not even going to think of it as Carlos' fucking sausage fuck no -- the shared meat into his mouth and obediently makes a show of deleting the screen grabs he has on his phone. "Look, if you used this as some kind of low-key Tinder or Grinder back in Milton-Keynes that is between you and the population of Milton-Keynes, but maybe don't bring it up in a way that's practically click-bait. I'm impulsive, you mention something humbling, I'm gonna try to find it man -- you're too perfect."

"I'm not perfect," Carlos says, rolling his eyes.

Carlos is pretty perfect, and there's a sappy bit to his brain that points out that Lando means that more than just physically, but he's ignoring that for right now because honestly; Lando lifts an eyebrow incredulously. "Oh, I'm sorry, you're right -- I couldn't tell if you have four pack or six pack abs in that photo because it was blurry, so it's possible you're a slob like the rest of us."

"If you're interested in finding out, you could just ask," Carlos says, sitting back and shrugging.

He can't possibly mean that as, like, ask me to get naked with you, Lando knows that, but his brain is absolutely not giving him any other outs here and he can feel his jaw hang-open slightly in a way that means he'll cling to the first stupid thing his mind concocts that isn't catastrophic, which is why he in fact says: "Seems like a gay thing to ask." Lando knows it's not what he should've said the second he's said it. His mouth moves like a wind-up toy for a second while Carlos just stares at him, that neutral disposition back like someone's opened a fridge with rotten food in it and he's just too polite to say something about it. "Which is to say, uhm -- I'm not looking to date you, I wouldn't want to make things weird, like."

Carlos seems to be judging this amendment to his statement with the scrutiny of a detective or a particularly skeptical headmaster. He breaks the silence with, "You are sending nudes to Ricciardo but asking to see my Myspace photos is gay."

"Oh my god, the nudes were a pun," Lando says, burying his face in his hands. A pun,  _ and  _ a soft kind of searching flirtation but that's neither here nor there right now, and Lando is most certainly not going to tell Carlos that.

"And the Myspace is just curiosity," Carlos says. "Or do I not understand this correctly?"

"Yes, look," Lando says, lifting his head. "The idea of you having had a Myspace is fascinating. Of course I was curious."

“Well,” Carlos says, leaning forwards and patting the table with open palms for emphasis. “If you are finding yourself still curious later on, my suggestion to ask me still stands. I will leave you to think on this and to enjoy the rest of my sausage.”

“It’s not your sausage, it’s the sausage you gave me to me Carlos, it’s my sausage now,” Lando can’t stop himself from blurting in a flustered hurry, the innuendo ridiculous and stifling without direct confirmation that it’s intentional, that Carlos is actually teasing him.

“I hear they pay a lot of money on the internet if you film yourself eating your own sausage my friend,” Carlos says as he stands, winking. “Maybe you should record with that space you freed up after deleting my profile photos and post it for your fans.”

“I hate you,” Lando says, but he’s saying it to the jauntily waving back of his teammate and no one else is close enough to him to hear anything else he might have to say on the matter.

Typical.

It's a quarter past midnight and Lando is looking at clock faces instead of sleeping… again. At least he's sitting on his bed tonight, though, so he can pretend he's made some sort of effort. He’s on top of the comforter and both the headboard lamps are on, but the main lights in the room are out. The printouts from Q3 and qualifying are scattered haphazardly over the desk and sideboard near the armchair, but his bed is relatively clear of race-related detritus. He’s finishing up his dailies for Stardew Valley on his phone, or honestly that’s what he’s been telling himself for the last 90 minutes but he hasn’t even gotten past repairing the fences or cave exploring which he was meant to get done yesterday. Lando’s restless. It’s a combination of factors, but a lot of it is just his existence not quite lining up with his optimal energy ouput -- he’s got a lot going on and almost nowhere to put it on race weekends outside of the blissful minutes he gets in the car.

He considers putting on the television, but he sleeps even worse with it on and Lando really does want to sleep despite the merry-go-round happening in his brain. He pulls up his messages before he can spare the energy to have a panic about it and says  _ alright fine whats the deal with your pecs  _ to Carlos and slams the phone face down next him before throwing a pillow over his own face and attempting to smother himself. He doesn’t shout into it but it’s a near thing.

Carlos is an adult, he’ll already be in bed so not only will he not see Lando’s stupid message until breakfast tomorrow morning  _ before the race _ but Lando will have to suffer with the suspense of the unread message all goddamn evening which if he thought he was having trouble sleeping previously, he’s spectacularly fucked the likelyhood of that now.

Lando’s brain shuts right up when his phone lights up, casting blue light onto the subtle cream herringbone patterning on the comforter. The tense mental silence almost leaves a sort of vibratory wake, like how his ears ring when he’s finally somewhere quiet after being on track all day. He tosses the pillow next to him, grabs the phone and scoots up the bed again so his back is flush with the wall-mounted headboard and bites his lip as he unlocks his phone to read what Carlos has replied with.

_ Which picture do you mean? Lipgloss or the one with swimming shorts _ and Landos has to stop and think actually, the lipgloss one was more about Carlos’ face than the curve of his body, although it was the one they’d discussed this afternoon. The lime swimshorts one though, Lando thinks, blinking. That had been a short pretty knees to shoulders, Carlos ducking his head down slightly for mostly just his grin to be framed in as well. In the name of proper evidence collection Lando decides that’s probably the better choice.

_ lime swimshorts has a more direct angle  _ he thumbs in before he can do something else like apologize for having even bothered Carlos. Lando cannot believe he’s still up, Carlos is pretty steady about his gym, bath, visualization routine nights before races. Lando wonders which part of that trio this is disturbing.

It takes about a minute, but Carlos sends the picture. Lando’s stuck on the light dusting of hair on Carlos’ thighs, the line of his hips, the trail of hair dusting Carlo’s nipples leading the way down towards the junction of his thighs. He knew, in a sort of vague way, that Carlos has a lot of hair, but he doesn’t stare -- or well, Lando  _ tries _ not to anyway most times he’d be given the opportunity to. This is different, this is implicit permission to notice the details. He’s not hench really in the picture, just slim, but there’s framework there where a bit of protein and a bit of time in the gym would elevate Carlos from stupidly attractive to god-like. It’s hard not to be appreciative of that fact. Lando licks his lips, acutely aware he should probably do something other than leave Carlos on read.  _ Human after all, now I can finally sleep at night. _

Lando fully intends to leave it at that, but it’s hard to stop thinking about Carlos now that he’s properly started. He wonders what Carlos is doing right now -- if he’s sat on his bed like Lando, or if he’s just out of the tub, drying off his hair. If he’s down on the 15th floor ragged with sweat and catching his breath between HIIT runs on the bike or row machine. If Lando concentrates, he can recall the way Carlos smells -- they’ve trained often enough together despite Lando’s general lack of interest in all forms of cardio. He wonders how Carlos’ s skin would taste, one his plain t-shirts soaked through with sweat, darker where the hair dusting his frame is there to collect it. He looks at the picture Carlos sent him again, forearm muscles bunched slightly as he holds something heavy off camera. Lando imagines Carlos’ hands on him, the two of them pressed together on a couch, in the lockers, Carlos’ hand his cock, jerking him off.  _ Shit _ , Lando thinks viciously at himself even as he feels his face heat up. He should not be doing this to himself. Bad enough he’s gone down this road with Dan, Dan’s always been safely inaccessible. Lando has no clue what Carlos is or isn’t anymore.

Still though -- Lando  _ does _ have to get to sleep somehow. Jerking off isn’t the most dignified option, but it might honestly be the most efficient at this point and hey! if he can’t quite look Carlos in the eye in the morning, it won’t really be all that different from any other day of his life anyway so what does he have to lose? He’s in his socks and boxer shorts, and the air in the room feels chilly against his skin as he slides his hand under the elastic of his waistband. He almost jumps off the bed entirely when his phone vibrates again, the phone resting against his wrist translating the sensation through his grip onto his growing hard-on. It’s Carlos, again. With another picture.

_ If you are going to bed then good night (ps it is how you say? _ above the picture itself, the message queue shifting slightly as the remainder comes in below what Carlos has sent, which reads: _ a six pack? although only very visible after two years low carb)  _ The picture is of Carlos, on the twin of Lando’s bed, the comforter bunched around his ankles. Carlos has taken a shot nipples down, shirt bunched around his arm pits, and as best as Lando can tell, he’s naked otherwise, one hand bunched in the sheet which Carlos has dragged up to cover his unmentionables. There’s a leaf of hotel letterhead next to him on the bed, the words “sleep tight :)” written in bold, black ink.

“Jesus,” Lando says out loud, more of a sigh than a complaint.

Carlos absolutely does have six-pack abs, no two ways about it. A brief comparison between the pictures shows that he’s filled out elsewhere as well, his chest broader, arms a bit thicker, thighs more cut. It’s not  _ fair _ , Lando almost feels like crying in frustration, but his dick rather decidedly has other priorities besides being upset Carlos is apparently a bit of a closet exhibitionist and Lando tightens his grip on himself involuntarily, the pressure wickedly frustrating rather than effective at providing any kind of genuine relief. Lando rolls over onto his belly and pulls his boxers down to his knees. He props the picture of Carlos up against a throw pillow, setting his screen to its longest time-out setting, and then drags the pillow next to him under and between his legs. He’d be a bit disgusted about rutting into his pillow if it were the only one, but there are five others, and he knows himself well enough to know that it’ll be better for him if he gets off without using his hands.

Lando looks at the way Carlos has framed himself again, imagines that the folds and shadow of the sheet aren’t arbitrary, but instead framing Carlos’ cock, that Carlos is getting off on the slight thrill of the exchange as much as Lando is apparently falling head first into himself. Wishes Carlos was in here with him, not just on his phone screen, if only because being watched would make this take even less time, Lando knows, wincing slightly at the drag of the pillow case against his dick, stops for a second to spit in his hand and easy the way slightly, working himself until things are nice and wet again. Lando’s not sure what he wants more, Carlos’ undivided attention or Carlos’ hands on him, the invitation to touch Carlos as freely given as this newfound invitation to look. Lando closes his eyes and presses his face into the mattress, thinks about how much better it would feel to be thrusting against Carlos’ stomach, this about Carlos’ mouth. Wonders what it would be like to get Carlos’ mouth on him, on his neck, on his chest. Lando licks his fingers and then reaches down to pinch at his nipples, and that’s really all it takes, that and his well-fed imagination, and he comes into the pillow with a whine.

It takes a few seconds, before everything down there feels too wet and way too gross, and Lando finally feels motivated enough to roll over and throw the pillow on the floor. He’s -- shit, ow, he’s going to be a bit sore tomorrow. Props himself up enough to quickly inspect everything, make sure he isn’t bleeding and is just a bit chaffed, and satisfied, Lando slaps off the remaining lights. He means to plug his phone in, to reply to Carlos with a “oh fuck you,” or a “I stand corrected” or literrally anything at all, but the sleep that just minutes ago seemed so inaccessibly far away rolls through his body like fog and Lando is asleep before he realizes it.

_ Come 2 my trailer after?  _ Dan’s messaged him while Lando’s slept. It’s legible via notifications, but Lando doesn’t bother to go into their chat stream to acknowledge it; he doesn’t want to even think about what he’ll be doing after the race right now, he’s late enough and will likely have to skip breakfast as it is.

Not that he’s relieved about that, mind you; the grace period of not having to deal directly with Carlos -- not without the buffer of responsibility and race prep -- is entirely coincidental and not at all of Lando’s design. It is, however, probably for the better.

“What am I forgetting, fuck, fuck fuck,” Lando chants out loud wishing he hadn’t told Kayla to go down to the car without him. He knows there’s something he didn’t slip into his bag that he’ll be fleeced for not bringing but without coffee and without food and with such little sleep regardless of how absolute and coma-like it wound up being after -- well, you know. Lando’s a bit more of a mess than his usual pre-race average.

“Paddock pass,” comes Carlos’ voice from the door.

Lando always leaves it bolt out right before he gets ready so he doesn’t do something collosally stupid like lock himself out without his key card. He’s done it before. Of course, it does also mean he can theoretically have unexpected visitors, although usually that just means the team sending people back upstairs to tell him to hurry the hell up.

“Hi,” Lando says freezing mid-rummage, feeling caught out and stupid. He doesn’t even know what the hell Carlos just said, just that he’s said something.

“I have been sent to tell you to hurry up, but your paddock pass,” Carlos says, smilingly slightly and pointing at Lando’s bedside table. “You should not forget that again.”

Lando turns and sees it. “Right, good point, thank you. Missed breakfast now everything’s a bit fuzzy.”

“About that,” Carlos says as Lando gathers his lanyard and then makes his way back over to where his teammate is standing. “I have coffee and pancakes with jam.”

Lando watches as Carlos produces a small take-away container and a reusable McLaren branded hot-cup. “You put… jam on pancakes?”

“They only had agave syrup,” Carlos explains. “I think this is more normal for you, kind of like crumpets.”

Lando smiles slightly, although… jam on pancakes is still quite a bit odd. It’s nice of Carlos, and the thoughtfulness feels normal, routine. “You’ll spoil me with the room service though, now I’ll never get up in the mornings.”

“Well if you truly have a problem getting up in the mornings,” Carlos says. “You can always text me for help with that too.”

He times it, of course, with Lando’s first sip of too-hot coffee and Lando has to do some quick swallowing to avoid spitting the coffee all over his shirt. It’s not exactly a call-out or an upfront acknowledgement of what happened last night, but it’s something. It’s enough to get him into the elevator and on his way to the race, and it’s enough to leave him hoping for more.

**Author's Note:**

> CW: mild homophobic language and behavior, shitty puns. That's literally it. this is pretty fluffy. I waffles on making this E rates and my deal is the jerking off that happens is relatively abstract. I don't think this is really filthy enough to warrant it.


End file.
